Westville Marine receives tearful homecoming

FOLSOM, Pa. — Gathered with dozens of other military families inside a gymnasium at the United States Marine Corps training center, Rian Jenkins and her two children waited about as patiently as anyone could expect them to.

Marine Staff Sgt. Ted Jenkins, 29, a Westville resident, was scheduled arrive by 1:30 p.m., as one of 27 soldiers arriving to the Folsom Marine Corps center on a bus from Camp Lejune in North Carolina, by way of Afghanistan.

While Jenkins had visited her husband in North Carolina on Super Bowl Sunday, after he first arrived stateside, the children hadn’t seen their father since his deployment in August — his third since 2003 — and before that only sparingly since he reported to camp in mid-April.

By 1 p.m., Jenkins was corralling 8-year-old Ashley and 5-year-old Teddy, both visibly excited, into chairs. Bobbing up and down in their seats, they held aloft hand-painted signs that read “Get out of my way, I get my daddy back today.”

Teddy wore a replica of his father’s uniform, the only difference being the pin affixed to the collar denoting the rank of gunnery sergeant — one rank above his father.

“I’m happy, and excited,” exclaimed Teddy, counting his emotions out with two fingers.

Ashley, whose birth Ted Jenkins had to miss due to his second deployment to Iraq in 2004, looked up at her mother and asked, “Is daddy coming home forever?”

“I hope so,” answered Jenkins, before noting that her husband still has eight years to go in the Marines.

“This is the longest part,” she added. “The waiting.”

Also waiting, all around the Marine gymnasium, were mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents, sons, daughters, spouses, friends and pets — all standing under “Welcome home” signs and checking their watches as the minutes ticked by.